Stuff I Learned

The older I get, the more I believe that we should respect the elderly. But recently, after the column about questions for Saint Peter, my elders wondered aloud whether I or Johnny Cochrane would make it as far as the Pearly Gates.

They suggested indeed that our accommodations might be a little hotter. Think Arizona in August.

It happens that I've been writing another list: "Stuff I Learned While I Was Alive." Perhaps they'll run it in hell's newspaper, The Devil's Advocate, which presently contains nothing but "Family Circus."

Satan doesn't take the paper anyway. His Cabinet is too busy strategizing the corruption of human souls...

"Sir, we're just not reaching them. Only a small percentage of people own vinyl records, and hardly anyone thinks to play them backwards."

The truth is that nobody can say what hell is like. All we know is that it will somehow involve the Nextel phone chirp.

Incidentally, it was "The Devil's Dictionary," a collection of smart-aleck-isms by Ambrose Bierce, that started me down this primrose path. I wrote my first one on the back cover:

"Altruism is when our selfishness benefits someone else."

So it goes.

Fallen souls of the vinyl record, I give ye "Stuff I Learned While I Was Alive"...

What's good for you depends largely on who sponsors the study.

No man is an island, but many are that large.

A concert is where they ruin all the songs you enjoyed on the radio.

The upside to dying is that you don't have to go to work the next day.

There is no "I" in team, but there is a "me."

Don't judge a book by its cover; judge it by the movie.

When you get mad, take ten deep breaths. If you're still mad, it's okay to hurt someone.

The world is divided into haves and have-nots: Those who have a sense of humor and those who do not.

Don't count your chickens before they're are all in one basket.

Judging by our political decisions, hindsight is 50-50.

"Royal gala"..."Rome beauty"..."red delicious"...apples are always looking for that edge.

The rat race is for the birds.

Public television is commercial-free during those brief intervals when they're not asking for money.

No means no. So does pepper spray.

You just think it's all in your head.

The last thing you want your relationship to become is serious.

The traffic is always lighter in someone else's lane.

The best part about gay men is that they're not always trying to prove that they're not gay.

Let no one belittle your integrity without paying you good money to do so.

What we could really use is freedom from the press.

Imagine how many people would get hit by trains if the trains didn't stay on those tracks.

Diarrhea also happens.

Times used to fly; now it's afraid of terrorists.

The average American attention span is...

It takes a lot of money to run for President. Over three bucks a gallon.

Swingers cheat on each other together.

Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for one day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll stink for the rest of his life.

If you go the wrong direction, everything is overseas.

God is whatever came before the Big Bang.

Everyone has that uncle you just can't trust. Mine is Uncle Sam.

Live each day like it's your second to last. That way you can fall sleep at night.

The real world is a figment of our lack of imagination.

If it weren't for the Second, maybe we wouldn't have to plea the Fifth.

Men are hit by lightning four times more often than are women, proof that God is improving Her aim.

Remember that you are totally unique just like everyone else.

And Johnny Cochrane will appeal to The Devil's Advocate, outraged that I would mention the Second as if his client could even spell "the Second," and I will retract nothing because that is how I saw it and if Johnny doesn't like it he can just go to ... well, he can just stay where he is.